Notes on the pronunciation of the Hebrew letter ש as 's', as opposed to 'sh' - Pt. 1
The pronunciation of the Hebrew letter ש by Ephraimites in Books of Judges ; Isaiah ; Jeremiah ; Ecclesiastes ; Mishnah and Midrash.
Part of a series. Pt. 2 Will be about medieval period and on
Wikipedia, “Voiceless postalveolar fricative” describes the ‘sh’ sound as
“a type of consonantal sound used in many languages, including English. In English, it is usually spelled ⟨sh⟩, as in ship.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ ʃ ⟩ […] An alternative symbol is ⟨š⟩ […] “
Classical Greek, Classical Latin, and early German did not have the “sh” sound.
The same is strongly indicated to have been the case in many language communities throughout Jewish history.
Throughout, I refer to שי"ן ימנית as ‘right-dot shin’, and שי"ן שמאלית as ‘left-dot shin’, or as ‘sin’.
Ephraimites in Books of Judges
“According to Judges 12:6, the tribe of Ephraim could not differentiate between Shin and Samekh; when the Gileadites were at war with the Ephraimites, they would ask suspected Ephraimites to say the word shibolet (שיבולת); an Ephraimite would say sibolet (סיבולת) and thus be exposed. From this episode we get the English word ‘shibboleth’.”
The following sections are based on the relevant chapter in Yechiel Gompertz’s monumental Hebrew book, Pronunciation of Our Language: Phonetic-Historical Studies:1
יחיאל גדליהו פ' גומפרץ, מבטאי שפתנו : מחקרים פוניטיים-היסטוריים (תשי"ג), פרק ג', "השי"ן טלטוליה וגלוליה"
Indications in Isaiah ; Jeremiah ; Ecclesiastes ; Mishnah and Midrash
Gompertz, pp. 42-43:
"More significant is the pun (word play) of "משפח" and "משפט" in the words of Isaiah (5:7). Among the nearly forty such wordplays in the words of Isaiah, whether intentional or not, there isn't a pun differing by more than a single root letter, especially in the aforementioned pun which is supported by the pairing of "righteousness" (צדקה) and "cry" (צעקה). This is solely because, for the prophet Isaiah, the right-dot "Shin" (שי"ן ימנית) and the left-dot "Shin" were identical in pronunciation.
Even though he was not from the tribe of Ephraim, we can also deduce from the prophecies of Jeremiah that for him, a native of Anathoth near Jerusalem's gates, the right-dot shin and samekh were pronounced the same. Hence he plays on words (Jeremiah 20:7) with the name "Pashhur" (פשחור) reminiscent of "surrounded by terror" (מגור מסביב). Were there a distinct pronunciation between "Shin" and "Samekh" in Jeremiah's time and place, he would certainly have made a play with words like "Shihor" (שיחור) or "Shahor" (שחור), but not with the word "Sahor" (סחור).
The word play in Ecclesiastes 7:5-6 also hints at the pronunciation identity of "Shin" and "Samekh" [...]
In the days of the Mishnah, when there was a transition from the leftward "Shin" to "Samekh" in writing, even the rightward "Shin" seemed to be following that path. "Sabatyon" serves as evidence: we find that "Shabbat" was translated to Greek as σάββατιον - "Sabbation", and then returned to Israel as סבטיון - "Sa(m)bation".2
The word "חֶרֶשׁ" (potter) in Joshua 2:1 is also explained by several of Rabbi Akiva's students [...] In these diverse interpretations, there's no differentiation between the right-dot and left-dot "Shin", thus, even in the days of the Tannaim, the merging of the pronunciation of the right-dot and left-dot "Shin" seems evident."
The book is available on Otzar Hachochma:
https://tablet.otzar.org/#/b/157036/p/41/t/1689407887757/fs/0/start/0/end/0/c/1689407904250 (requires registration, and Mosad Harav Kook add-on).
I’d like to thank Yehudit Henschke for referring me to this book.
Sambation - Wikipedia: “According to rabbinic literature, the Sambation (Hebrew: סמבטיון) is the river beyond which the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were exiled by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (סנחריב). In the earliest references, such as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (תרגום יונתן בן עוזיאל), the river is given no particular attributes, but later literature claims that it rages with rapids and throws up stones six days a week, or even consists entirely of stone, sand and flame. For those six days the Sambation is impossible to cross, but it stops flowing every Shabbat, the day Jews are not allowed to travel; some writers say this is the origin of the name.” Cf. also the Talmudic sources cited in סמבטיון – ויקיפדיה.
A great reminder that we must avoid tempo-centricity (in addition to all the other centricities) when discussing our history. Can't make assumptions based on how things are now. My understanding is that each shevet had a different nusach, whcih makes scholarship even more complicated -- but at least we can relate to it given all the different pronunciations amongst contemporary Jewish groups. And in fact, it should make us more tolerant of those differences! (emphasis on should.)